Christmas is just around the corner, and with it comes the culmination of weeks of planning that all-important Christmas meal. All the family are coming over, the turkey is stuffed, the sprouts peeled and the figgy pudding… well, whatever you do to figgy pudding has been well and truly done to it. But the chef is still stressed – after all, this is the big day!

That’s why we’re lucky to live in a modern era, where every chef can get a little helping hand from the pre-prepared food market – being able to buy those figgy puddings pre-whatevered is nothing short of a modern day Christmas miracle! And your Bad PR blogger isn’t alone in thinking so:

Neil Nugent, from Morrisons who conducted the survey, said, ‘Christmas is a time of the year when the whole family comes together so it’s no wonder that we want to avoid any last minute hiccups, leading to Christmas cooks putting a little extra pressure on themselves to get everything ‘just so’.

The staple of the British diet – The Sunday Roast – is under attack… or so it might seem if you were paying attention to the news of late. First came the question:

Could roast dinners become a thing of the past? Thousands of families can no longer afford to cook traditional Sunday meal

The traditional Sunday roast faces becoming a thing of the past as prices are hiked under a new Government tax, a new report showed yesterday.

Enjoyed by millions of families across Britain the threat comes amid concerns that people are now too time and money poor to make the quintessentially British meal on a weekly basis.

The threat to this national dish was revealed by a YouGov survey as the Government sets to increase the price of hot rotisserie chicken, used by more than one in four (26%) to make a roast, by 20 per cent from Monday.

‘Don’t Tax Our Roast’ – a campaign urging the Government to rethink its plans to add VAT to freshly cooked roast chicken – has already attracted over 30,000 signatures since its launch three weeks ago.

The campaign is backed by the British Poultry Council, the National Federation of Meat and Food Traders, parenting website Netmums and Morrisons supermarket – all believe a tax on whole rotisserie chickens is unfair.

Next came:

They don’t grow on trees you know! A FIFTH of Britons aren’t sure where their Sunday roast parsnips come from– 1 in 20 Brits thinks Granny Smiths are a potato– 3 out of 10 adults don’t know how potatoes grow– 1 in 10 think tomatoes are harvested from the ground

It says everything you need to know about our mass-produced, pre-packaged supermarket society.

One in five adults apparently believe that parsnips grow on trees.

The statistic is the most shocking in a survey that reveals a bewildering level of consumer ignorance on fruit and vegetables.

Given that the message we’re told involves adults being ignorant of where vegetables come from, is it any surprise that the source of the story was… the Potato Council?

Caroline Evans (from Potato Council) added: ‘Potatoes are one of the most versatile foods – they can be used to create so many tasty dishes and being naturally fat free, they’re a nutritious base for lots of meals too.

And bringing us up to date we had the following story from the Telegraph:

Is the traditional Sunday roast a thing of the past?

The Sunday roast may be a dying tradition, with just two per cent of families sitting down for the weekly meal, according to a new survey.

The survey revealed that the vast majority of people prefer to opt for a ready meal or a quick bowl of pasta instead of a roast dinner with the family.

Nearly 50 per cent of the population live within 10 miles of their relatives, yet they rarely get together to share a meal.

Luke Thomas, Welsh Lamb Club chef, said: “It’s such a shame to see fewer families getting around the dinner table these days. I think food should be at the heart of the home and is a great way of bringing people together.”

With articles placed into the press by special interest groups involved with poultry, lamb and potatoes, we’re only really missing a story from Bisto and we’d have the perfect PR roast dinner on our hands.

So, we’re all shunning the outside world in order to stay in and have drinks, wine, snacks and treats, according to the survey. That would be the survey run by…

Forty-four per cent of people surveyed by supermarket Morrisons for the latest poll said their main reasons for staying in this year were concerns about finances.

That would be the survey run by Morrisons, the supermarket – the very place where one could by drinks, wine, snacks and treats, if one had reason to believe most people were shunning the outside world in order to stay in on New Year’s Eve.

Morrisons said it is expecting to sell over 89,000 bottles of champagne, cava and prosecco as people toast the New Year at home.

The supermarket also predicts 14 tonnes of crisps and over 43,000 packs of party poppers will be bought.

Sonia Whiteley-Guest, from Morrisons, said: ‘We understand that budgets are a little tight this year.

‘People want to enjoy celebrating what a great year 2012 has been with people they love and care about rather than worry about the dent on their wallet.’

I for one am glad that Morrisons are so concerned with our wallets, and I’m particularly glad they were able to secure a spot in the Daily Mail and the Daily Star to let me know this very fact about them.